Down 35 Pounds

I think there's a part of me that is so used to failing that I never truly expected myself to succeed with this when I start this blog. I looked back through my beginning posts and the first time I mentioned my weight I was at 199.5. Sadly, this is not my highest, which was 213-215. I hovered around 200 so long I just knew I'd never get away from it. 

This morning, however, I hit the 170s for the first time in so long. It feels so good to see a 7 as the second number. In all I've lost about 35 pounds. I only have about 55 to go. The greatest part is I no longer look at my remaining weight as impossible. That 55 pounds will go away. It's only a matter of time.

I know I can keep up these changes that I've made, and not just for the time I want to lose weight. I want and plan to make even more changes to be even healthier. I can do this. I can't wait to see what weight I can get to before summer. Would be awesome if I could reach my goal of 130.

Holy crap! I just realized I have 40 pounds to go!

It's really kind of weird being on the other side of the fence. I feel like a switch was flipped inside me somewhere. Suddenly I'm not struggling to keep away from junk food. I honestly don't even want or crave it anymore. Perhaps I've been invaded by the body snatchers and am now a pod person? That sure would explain this dramatic shift.

Tecnically CD 22 & Homemade Italian Dressing

I found the recipe for the Italian dressing pictured above HERE. I cut the salt in half and left the sugar out of the recipe. It turned out pretty good, definitely not as sweet as store bought. The hubby like it, so I guess it's not too awfully terrible. I used an old, glass dressing bottle that I had saved to store it in. Kind of perfect. Now I can make some pasta salad, with zucchini noodles of course, whenever I like.

I actually plan on trying some other condiment recipes. I found a free eBook the other day that has nothing but condiment recipes in it. Since I began my healthy eating quest I've sworn off all condiments. It sucks because I really love condiments. They make meals so yummy.

For dinner I sliced cabbage, seasoned with salt and pepper, and lay it in the bottom of my Nuwave oven. On the rack above that I put in a layer of root vegetables, potatoes, parsnips, and some other white vegetable that I cannot remember the name of. It was all pretty gross except for the potatoes. One of those root vegetable things tastes kind of like black licorice. I hate that stuff and I can't even spell it! Had to use Google.

At least my salad turned out okay. I used my homemade dressing that I made. Nothing really awesome about my meals today, but they were endo friendly, as far as I know. Feeling pretty awesome about that. Tomorrow though I'm going to have to make something new. I have lots of recipes on Pinterest that I want to use now.

TTC News:

To me, I'm cd 21 because I have no been to sleep yet despite it being 2:57 a.m. at this exact moment. Had a really nice visit with my SIL. I really enjoy her coming over. I could possible wear her out with all my chatter though. The hubby actually surprised me while she was here. He's never been on board to really push fertility treatments, but today when me and the SIL began discussing it IVF was brought up. She suggested us go overseas for treatment and when he responded positively to the suggestion I reminded him of the trial thing in NY. Shockingly he responded by informing us that he could just fly me up for my appointments. I hope he meant it, because as soon as I get my BMI low enough I'm applying.

Of course, I'd much rather it happen sooner than I could do that and naturally.

I've been feeling really bloated and a little constipated tonight. I have no idea what dpo I am, and I'm probably way to early, but it still gets me a little hopeful. Okay, okay. A lot hopeful. I've also had random bouts of nausea, but I could just be making that up. Or it could be because I was eating way under my calories that past several days without knowing it. Hopefully I'm not getting sick though.

CD 20 & Spicy Spinach, Avocado, & Tomato Salad

I was so excited after I weighed myself this morning. I know I shouldn't do it daily, but I do. My weight has been stalled at 183 for about two weeks. After talking to some other girls I decided to track my calories for the day. I haven't been doing that for about two months or longer. I discovered that I was 400 calories under my 1200 calorie goal. I added in 400 calories worth of fruits and veggies and the next morning I was down to 181.5. I should probably add that I did do a 20 minute exercise video as well. I haven't been doing much exercising. I'm not sure if upping my calories or adding in the exercise got my weight moving, but I hope it continues to go down.

Most of my meals today are either the same or similar to things I've already shared, except the one pictured above. I call it a Spicy Spinach, Avocado, & Tomato Salad. I found the original recipe HERE, but I changed it up a bit and used salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper instead of the lemon pepper. My first bowl was made for lunch and I enjoyed it so much I ended up having it for dinner as well.

Speaking of dinner. I fixed the family sloppy joes using deer meat. It looked so good I ended up eating about a tablespoon on one piece of bread. I feel okay eating deer because the animal was wild and not "factory farmed" like most of our store meats. I'd eat it more often if it wasn't red meat, which is inflammatory and bad for endo.

TTC News:

That shoe I've been waiting on to drop finally did. One of the daughters assignments today was to write down five reasons she likes the story about Peter Rabbit. Her #4 reason was because he has siblings. Ouch. I never stop feeling like I'm failing her, but moments like this just amp it up to almost unbearable levels. After reading her list I couldn't help but sit and watch her and think about how great of a sister I think she would be. I wish I could tell her. I wish I could give her the chance.

This is why I can't give up. I don't know if my eating habits will make a difference, but I have to do whatever I can. She deserves the chance to know what it's like to have a brother or sister.

Ugh, this sucks!

CD 18 & Italian Shrimp Stir-Fry

Breakfast was so yummy today. I had my current favorite, veggie scrambled eggs with hot picante sauce, an avocado with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper, and microwaved cinnamon and honey apples. Mmmmm Mm! It was yummy! And totally endo friendly, I think? Aside from the eggs for some. I was really surprised at how well the apples came out. I think I'll have them again tomorrow but add some nuts to the mix.

Microwave "Fried" Apples

1 apple sliced

cinnamon

honey

** Slice apples, or chop, and place in microwave safe bowl. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Cook on high for 1-2 minutes, until natural juices develop. Stir and add honey. Done!

The picture above is my version of Italian pasta salad. Instead of pasta, I used zucchini noodles. I also made my own Italian dressing. You can find the recipes HERE. I followed it exactly, except I left out the sugar and cut the salt in half. Still tasted pretty good to me. It's different than your typical bottled dressing though.

Italian Zucchini Noodle Salad

1 zucchini

handful of grape tomatoes

1/2 yellow onion chopped

1/2 yellow bell pepper(or whatever color you have on hand) chopped

homemade italian dressing (recipe HERE)

** Use spiral slicer to turn zucchini into yummy noodles. Boil onions and yellow peppers until tender. Add all ingredients to a bowl and drizzle with dressing.

I went to the store the other day and just thought I'd show how my counter looks after I return. My family loves fruits so I load up on them, especially if there is a good sale. I was able to get the oranges for .50/lb and the big bowl of clementines (it was full) for $4. I was also able to price match the bananas and get them for .38/lb. I'm sure all of this will be gone by the end of this weekend.

While at the store I was also able to find this pile of green beans marked down to .54/lb. I think I ended up with about 5 lbs all together. I separated them into family sized portions and froze them. The fruits and these green beans may or may not be organic. I'm not sure? I want to start buying organic, but it's so hard to pass up such good prices when money doesn't grow on trees where you live.

And then we come to dinner. Italian Shrimp Stir-fry. I used my homemade Italian dressing on it and I have to say, it turned out rather well. The family enjoyed theirs on a nice bed of linguine noodles, but I had my good ol' trusty zucchini noodles. The potatoes were marinated in rosemary and thyme and boy were they good. I may have ate a bit more than I should have. You can find the recipe I used for the Stir-fry HERE. I used the same Italian dressing that I used for the pasta salad above.

TTC News:

Today is cd 18 and the nips are still sore. I've also had some pressure in the ovary area, but I'm sure that's related to recent ovulation. My boobs are not sore yet though and that always happens around 6-7 dpo. Not that I'm trying to obsess or anything. I'm just trying to get an idea! Really!

Seriously though, I'm actually enjoying this relaxed cycle. I still have yet to worry about my imperfect timing. I'm not even sure what perfect is? I never seemed to have perfect timing. Something was always wrong. I've even found myself stressing over whether it was sooner rather than later at night. If it was O day and I felt a pinching pain that I connected with O, I swear I would think of nothing except my dying egg until we did bd. Psycho, right?

I hope this healthy eating thing works to get me knocked up. I've never in my life worked this hard to change my eating habits. On top of that, I quite smoking for this same reason 2.5 years ago. Cold turkey! Of course, I'm happy that I'm becoming healthier, but I have to say I'll be pretty bummed if it doesn't put a bun in my oven.

As of today I'm down to 183. I did get down to 182, but my weight generally fluctuates up and down by a pound or two. Can't wait to get out of the 180s. Fat increases estrogen, estrogen is miracle grow for endometriosis, therefor my fat needs to go!

CD 17 & Grilled Shrimp Fajitas

The picture above shows my current favorite obsession. Basically it's just a scrambled omelet without cheese. Before I even finished all of it I was ready for breakfast tomorrow. Sad, I know, but it's so yummy. It's all basically the same as the last one I made, however, this time I added a couple fresh green beans. Not bad, but not awesome. Next time I'll be leaving the green beans out.

So, even though the food pictured above looks a little more like slop, it was absolutely delicious! I did eat one fajita with a flour tortilla, but I ate the rest without a tortilla. This is one of the recipes that I pinned from the Betty Crocker recipe collection. You can find the recipe HERE.

If you like shrimp and you like fajitas I definitely recommend this meal. I need to pick up some gluten free wraps. I'm doing my best to cut out gluten along with everything else. It's just so confusing. It seems like the stuff is everywhere!

TTC News:

CD 17 today and there's not a whole lot going on. I'm pretty sure that I've ovulated, but I'm not sure which day. My skin is feeling hot and I've had pretty sensitive nips today and yesterday, maybe the day before yesterday? I'm not too sure now. According to FF I should get AF around February 1st or 2nd. Not looking forward to her arrival.

Gah...I'm anxious to get back from MD so that I can get things rolling with the doctor again. I really want to have the HSG procedure done to make sure my tubes are not blocked. Hopefully I can avoid another surgery if I can continue to manage my pain through my diet. Waiting sucks but, since my insurance doesn't cover anything fertility related we have to keep the costs low. With our daughter having surgery this year we'll at least meet the deductible for the year.

I have to say, not tracking anything this month has been kind of nice. Of course, I'm still aware of the approximate time I O'd and when we BD'd, but I'm not 100% sure. Since I'm not sure of exact days I can't really focus so much on whether or not our timing was "perfect" or not. I think I'll be doing this again next cycle as well.

Of course, I'd much rather get knocked up than get another cycle!

CD 16 & Yummy Spicy Stuff

Well, I had hoped to get to the grocery store this morning so that I could try out one of my many recipes I've pinned but things didn't work out that way. We ended up going out of town for most of the day and by the time we headed back it was so cold I just wanted to be home.

I still got to use my Nuwave oven, even if it was only for roasting some mushrooms. They turned out pretty good. I really enjoyed the scrambled eggs and veggies that went with it. I was kind of in the mood for a breakfast burrito, but I don't each cheese, meat or the tortillas. That would have left scrambled eggs, and I wanted something a little more interesting than that. I decided to toss in some bell peppers and onions. I've been calling it a scrambled egg fajita without the tortilla. I added a good bit of hot picante sauce and it really hit the spot.

Scrambled Egg Fajita w/o Tortilla

Sliced bell peppers (whatever color)

Sliced onion

2 Eggs

Hot picante sauce

**This was so easy peasy. I just sliced some bell peppers and onion fajita style, cooked them until they were soft, then added two eggs. Top with hot picante sauce and you're good to go!

Dinner was kind of an experiment as well. I'm running low on fruits and veggies so I kind of tossed what's pictured above together and was pleasantly surprised by the results. I ended up eating two large bowls. I really don't know what to call it? So I guess I'll just call it Garlic & Herb Black Bean & Veggie Slop for now. This meal was super easy and fast as well. It only took a few minutes to throw together after getting home.

Garlic & Herb Black Bean & Veggie Slop

can of black beans

sliced bell peppers

sliced onion

chopped zucchini

chopped green onion

chopped tomato

old bay garlic and herb seasoning

hot picante sauce

**Add all ingredients to a pan and cook until veggies are tender. season with garlic and herb seasoning and hot picante sauce.

I wonder if endometriosis has any connection to fatigue? Maybe I'll go do a little browsing around the web and see what I can find out. I just know that there are some days when keeping my eyes open feels like torture. Today is one of those days.

CD 15 & A Nuwave Dinner

So, I decided to try out my Nuwave oven that I got for Christmas tonight. No, not this past Christmas. The one before that. Yeah, that Christmas. Poor thing has seen no use before tonight. I'm going to be trying to change that though. I'm on a quest to find and execute awesome Nuwave recipes!

For my first meal in the Nuwave I fixed roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli (burned it a little before I realized it needed to be in aluminum foil), and old bay salmon. The potatoes were rockin! The broccoli, however, was pretty gross. It wasn't that badly burned, but I guess it was enough to make it taste pretty bad.

It was pretty nice since it was mostly fixed all at the same time without me having to do much, but I did have to cook the potatoes and broccoli a little before I added the fish. I had originally thought I could just throw everything inside it at the same time and VOILA! Dinner! Only, not exactly. I kind of think that the broccoli may have had a salmon taste, but it could have been where it was burned. I'm not really sure.

I've found several recipes that I'm planning on trying this week. I have never really used Pinterest, but I started pinning the foods I found and want to try. Hopefully this will help me keep up with all of the yummy sounding recipes I find that are endo friendly. You can see all that I pin HERE.

I think I might be most excited to try the Garlic Shrimp Pasta and the Zucchini Pizza Bites. I'll be using the 4 ingredient pizza sauce recipe that I pinned as well. I'd like to keep the sugar to a minimum and this seems like a decent way to do it. I'll also be making my own Italian dressing for the Italian Shrimp Stir-Fry. Of course, there are a couple ingredients I'll either be leaving out completely or substituting for something else a little more endo friendly. For example, I'll be using zucchini noodles in place of pasta noodles for myself.

I'm still struggling to wrap my head around 30 cycles of active TTC, let alone nine and a half years since we stopped birth control. Whoever said time heals all wounds didn't do anything but tell a big fat lie. If anything, my heartache has multiplied. The only thing that has changed is my ability to keep my feelings locked up. And to add a cherry on top, my daughter just turned 10 years old. At this rate she'll be grown and living on her own before # 2 comes along.

It has been a couple of weeks since she has voiced her desire for a sibling or told me she was lonely. I keep waiting for it. I know it's coming. I hate feeling like I'm failing her. Because of me she has/is and probably will continue to grow up alone. Thanks body.

I was having a bad day a while back and when my husband noticed I told him that I didn't think this feeling was going to go away. It's been far too long and I still feel as broken as I always have, if not more so. Funny enough, he said he was thinking the same thing the day before. You see, we're in different places as far as #2 goes. He's still okay with just waiting for it to happen, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. I, on the other hand, am ready to run to a RE and fork out the money to win this battle against endometriosis!

I wish I could go for HSGs, IUIs, IVF! But nooooooo. My state doesn't mandate infertility coverage. Thanks for nothing KY >.<